Labyrinths

    Yesterday I was hiking up in the Oakland Hills and took a photo of a labyrinth constructed by anonymous folks over the years.  It reminded me of our so called health care 'system' that Tea Party folks say they don't want taken away.   What system?   The one that tens of millions don't have?   The one that's like a labyrinth with obstacles at every turn?

   Let me tell you a sad story, one that should never have happened.   I'm going to disguise a few details for confidentiality reasons.   A few years ago a young adult in his mid 20s--we'll call him W--a very ethical person, eking out a living as meditation teacher, someone who ate thoughtfully, and who like many his age had no health insurance, began to have intermittent fevers and some transitory, mysterious symptoms and joint pains.  He also had some chronic dental problems.  After a couple of months and some more testing, one day he received a call from his clinic saying that he had a positive blood culture, that it could be dangerous,  and that he should go to the hospital immediately.  As it happened an MD friend was there and W played the message for him.  The MD reinforced that he should go to the hospital urgently, that the infection could spread to different places.  W said he would think about it, try to get things together, and maybe go the next day.  He wasn't seen again for two or three days, and people assumed that he had was in the hospital.  Then a friend from work came over saying that the hadn't been around.  The friend and a roommate went back to his room and found him semiconscious on the floor and paralyzed on one side.  The bacteria had formed a small clot on a heart valve which broke loose and blocked an artery in the brain, and he had a stroke.   I'm sure that had he not been worried about the expenses of the hospital and and about losing his meagre wages, he would have gone to the hospital and likely have avoided the stroke.  

     Think of all those people with jobs that don't have benefits: the waitress at your favorite restaurant, the guy at the 7-11 or the gas station, the clerk at the photo shop.  Regular people who deserve better.  I've worked 35 years in the current so called 'system' and it doesn't work that well for a lot of people with insurance, let alone those without.  I'm sure you all know someone with a 'preexisting condition' who can't get health insurance because of it--or who has to pay exorbitant rates.   We need a single payer system and universal coverage.  All of the industrialized countries have some version of it, and none is perfect; but none of them has the disgrace of millions of citizens without insurance.  Checkout Physicians for a National Health Plan--a lot of good information there, and you can find out ways to get involved.